Location: Ljubljana, CUK Kino Šiška, Slovenia
Date: Saturday, January 22, 2012
The great Finnish singer Tarja Turunen, best known to most as the first and former voice of Finnish symphonic power metallers Nightwish, is diligently building a solo career. In the middle of summer 2010 she released a new studio album called “What Lies Beneath”, her third overall, promoted by three singles: Falling Awake, I Feel Immortal and Until My Last Breath.
With this visit to Slovenia, Tarja has now made it to our parts three times. She first played Slovenia on September 18, 2005, with Nightwish at Križanke, and then on October 14, 2009, again at Križanke, but this time as a solo artist.
Ever since Tarja started roaming the planet as a solo act, Nightwish fans have been forced to go to her shows as well as Nightwish’s. Plain and simple. Even if Tarja doesn’t play at least one Nightwish cover at her gigs, her voice, that one-of-a-kind mezzo-soprano, angelically caressing, is the charm that stirs the nostalgic core in Nightwish lovers, since Anette Olsson with her “dollish” approach doesn’t come up to the ankles of Tarja’s charisma. Not in stature, let alone in voice. That fact matters hugely for Tarja, even though Nightwish are the past for her, and it’s a fact that helps her survive in the cruel world of show business.
The openers this time were barely known! Sylpheed, a sextet playing a kind of modern blend of gothic, death and power elements: two guitarists, a drummer, a bassist, a violinist and a tall, slender singer who handles both the growling and the clean melodic vocals. Sadly, the horribly harsh, muffled, cramped overall sound, in which the bass especially cut through the mix in a nasty way, made it impossible to really enjoy the band’s set. The band is young and needs gigs. They still haven’t released a studio debut, with only a few recorded demos in their pocket. Maybe next time we’ll get something more authentic from their performance. Though the lasting impression was pale, the band is clearly no slouch. In 2010 they played Sweden Rock Festival, as the first Italian act ever.
Next up left a bit more energy in the room! Scala Mercalli. Also from Italy. Generic power metal with a hyperactive, hopping vocalist “on helium” who barked at the hall up and down and across with his frenzied, rushing stage presence. The sound problem stayed the same. Very little clarity, so you could hardly tell what the band was even doing on stage. The sound was thoroughly muffled again. Still, solid musicians. The two guitarists especially proved it with some daredevil acrobatics up and down the fretboard. Music strictly for those of you who consume literally every power metal band going and aren’t thrown off the rails by meowing vocals.
It’s 10 p.m. A translucent veil of lovely virginity blocks the view of the stage. Darkness wraps the hall as, through a canned intro, the members of Tarja Turunen’s backing band file onstage one after another. Let’s name them right away. First up is undoubtedly one of the best metal drummers in the world, American Mike Terrana (Axel Rudi Pell, ex-Rage, he’s also worked with Y.J. Malmsteen, Masterplan, Gamma Ray, Steve Lukather,…), followed by former Apocaliptycin cellist Max Lilja (a good buddy of Doug Wimbish from Living Colour, who also used to play for Tarja), Germans guitarist Alex Scholpp (SInner) and keyboardist Christian Kretschmar, and American bassist Kevin Chown, who played on Mike Terrana’s solo album “Man In Machine” (1998). All aces, in other words. The intro nearly gets drowned out as the hall erupts. Even more, salvos of wild, unbridled screams of euphoria go off, as if The Beatles themselves were walking onstage. And of course Tarja is with us. Like she’d slipped out of a masquerade ball. Masked.
The opening Anteroom Of Death, contrary to expectations, didn’t flow into Until My Last Breath like on the new album, but into Lost Northern Star from the previous album “My Winter Storm” (2007). The opening stretch was pure “fusion” of opera and metal. The first five numbers, peaking with the “everybody knows it by heart” hit I Walk Alone, kept pushing up the temperature in the hall. The sound wasn’t exactly ideal at the start, the guitars especially weren’t clearly audible again, but later it was fixed up satisfactorily.
Tarja had the crowd enchanted from the get-go. Her gestures of addressing the audience, in Slovenian at key moments too, quickly got the crowd literally eating out of her hand for the whole set. And of course there’s her energetic, masterfully crafted stage and vocal presence, with a one-of-a-kind interpretation that easily gives you goosebumps as Tarja conquers untamed heights. In her performance Tarja has of course kept that “metal-rock” stamp that adorned her shows with Nightwish too. She still likes to raise her hand high in the air and show the “malocchio” (“evil eye”) in the style of Ronnie James Dio, and her flirting with the audience is typical, when she grabs her skirt and whips it around in rhythm, etc…
One of the highlights is of course Mike Terrana’s solo spot. Let the party begin! “The Troll”, as he’s nicknamed, a man who knows no rest and is constantly overloaded with work on various music projects, isn’t set up on the right side, up front by the audience and right at the edge of the stage, for nothing. Mohawk haircut, bestial pounding, sweat spraying all around Mike! A distinctive drum setup, with cymbals raised high, even some of the toms mounted in unusually high positions. Mike literally climbs over them. Drum solos are usually plonked in the middle so the band can rest, often a waste of time with no real substance. But not in the case of Mike Terrana’s drumming. Even if you’re not a Tarja Turunen fan, it’s worth coming to her show for this drum solo alone. You just fall into stunned silence! Perfection taken to perfection. Extreme explosiveness and ultrasonic speed. Cannon-like precision that hits every target, no matter how well hidden and hard to crack.
Next comes an instrumental warm-up by the whole band in Little Lies, which Tarja rejoins on stage in the second half. After the brand-new song Underneath, which we can expect on Tarja’s new studio album, announced for 2013, comes the cover The Phantom Of The Opera (orig. Andrew Lloyd Webber), which Kratschmer opens with Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor”. As the song unfolds, a familiar figure bounces onto the stage. Who the heck could it be? None other than Requiem vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and highly talented musician Sergej Škofljanec. In the flesh, beard and all. In rocker gear, with a Requiem shirt. For a moment, seeing Tarja all dressed up, you might dare to think: “Hey Sergej! Haven’t you seen how Andrea Bocceli dresses for the stage?”, but never mind. It’s best to stay honest to your rocker heart! Sergej shared the vocal lines with Tarja, and of course the “crescendo” came with the chorus, when the two vocalists merged in a duet. Škofljanec, who before the show, in anticipation of the event, had visibly been “wound up”, running around the halls of Kino Šiška, played his part brilliantly, and even Tarja herself didn’t hide her fascination with “Sergio”‘s great performance. An almost dreamlike combination. It might not be a silly idea to think about recording something together as a vocal duo in the future.
Next comes an acoustic set, which conjures up a completely different atmosphere in dreamy Kino Šiška, with Tarja’s voice sparkling again in exceptional form. The closing part of the regular set unfolds in a similar manner to the opening. Symphonic power metal-ish. Rock and operetta! You have to bring it all to a peak. An hour and twenty minutes tick by before the band says goodbye to the crowd.
The encore surprises with a medley of covers, opened by a rework of the hit Where Were You Last Night by Swedish pop singer Ankie Bagger, with two more unforgettable hits slotted into it: Heaven Is A Place On Earth (orig. Belinda Carlisle) and Living On A Prayer (orig. Bon Jovi). The real peak comes when someone in the audience hands Tarja a Slovenian flag and she wraps herself in it. Like that, Tarja one last time dives wildly and with great energy into the sea of her emotions and sensitivity, as the closing Die Alive and Until My Last Breath bring the night home.
An hour and forty minutes of fascination that instantly answers with a yes the question of whether Tarja’s solo path was the right decision. A mini symphonic orchestra in metal garb, stuffed with excellent stage delivery that knows no unknowns or pitfalls on stage. Most of all the magic created belongs of course to Tarja, who bewitched the hall and led it into the singer’s one-of-a-kind musical world. After this show it’s clear once again that Nightwish lost more than Tarja did after they split. Still, they remain bigger, precisely thanks to the era of classic releases with Tarja on vocals, since their fans are always feverishly waiting to hear those live. Tarja, on the other hand, proves with her excellence that she left Nightwish far behind long ago. On her solo path she’s maturing, growing, and performing with more confidence than ever.
words: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Nina Grad
Setlist:
1. Anteroom of Death
2. Lost Northern Star
3. Naiad
4. I Walk Alone
5. Dark Star
6. Drum Solo (Mike Terrana)
7. Little Lies (band)
8. Little Lies
9. Underneath
10. The Phantom Of The Opera (orig. Andrew Lloyd Webber)
11.Rivers of Lust / Minor Heaven / Montañas de Silencio / Sing for Me
12. I Feel Immortal
13. Never Enough
14. In for a Kill
—encore—
15. Where Were You Last Night (orig. Ankie Bagger, plus Heaven is A Place On Earth (Belinda Carlisle), Living On A Prayer (orig. Bon Jovi))
16. Die Alive
17. Until My Last Breath
